The Museum of Clockmaking () is a museum in the town of

Villingen-Schwenningen Villingen-Schwenningen (; Low Alemannic: ''Villinge-Schwenninge'') is a city in the Schwarzwald-Baar district in southern Baden-Württemberg, in south-western Germany. It had 89,743 inhabitants as of September 2024. History In the Middle Ages, ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

, and is dedicated to the history of the

clockmaking A clockmaker is an artisan who makes and/or repairs clocks. Since almost all clocks are now factory-made, most modern clockmakers only repair clocks. Modern clockmakers may be employed by jewellers, antique shops, and places devoted strictly t ...

industry in the town. For much of the 19th century (and early 20th century), Schwenningen was one of southern Germany's most important centres of industrial scale clock manufacturing. The museum is at ''Bürkstraße 39'', a building that was built to house the manufacturing plant for clocks by ''Wũrttenbergische Uhrenfabrik Bũrk Söhne''. That company was considered to be the world leader in the specialised field of portable watchmen's control clocks and related time-recording devices. The core of the museum's collection is made up of working production machinery used to make precision metal parts that can be assembled into clock movements. They have all the machinery in-house to produce all components (except for the

mainspring A mainspring is a spiral torsion spring of metal ribbon—commonly spring steel—used as a power source in mechanical watches, some clocks, and other clockwork mechanisms. ''Winding'' the timepiece, by turning a knob or key, stores energy in ...

) to manufacture a simple

alarm clock An alarm clock or alarm is a clock that is designed to alert an individual or group of people at a specified time. The primary function of these clocks is to awaken people from their night's sleep or short naps; they can sometimes be used for o ...

movement. Staffing permitting, the full museum visit includes a demonstration of the

lathe A lathe () is a machine tool that rotates a workpiece about an axis of rotation to perform various operations such as cutting, sanding, knurling, drilling, deformation, facing, threading and turning, with tools that are applied to the w ...

milling machine Milling is the process of machining using rotary cutters to remove material by advancing a cutter into a workpiece. This may be done by varying directions on one or several axes, cutter head speed, and pressure. Milling covers a wide variety of ...

s and

punch press A punch press is a type of machine press used to cut holes in material. It can be small and manually operated and hold one simple die (manufacturing), die set, or be very large, CNC operated, with a multi-station turret and hold a much larger and c ...

es, as well as the assembly and packaging process. In addition, there is a comprehensive display of locally mass-produced clocks from most of the former clock factories of Schwenningen. The museum also puts on temporary exhibitions.

External links

*http://www.uhrenindustriemuseum.de Uhrenindustriemusem Villingen-Schwenningen (Website available only in

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

) {{Authority control Horological museums in Germany Museums in Baden-Württemberg Villingen-Schwenningen Buildings and structures in Schwarzwald-Baar-Kreis

See also

External links